What Alan Watts Can Teach Us About Leadership

I was listening to a talk by Alan Watts and found one bit of advice that really connected to what I’ve learned about leading others.

The principle is that any time you — as it were — voluntarily let up control.

In other words, cease to cling to yourself; you have an excess of power because you are wasting energy all the time in self defense.

Trying to manage things, trying to force things to conform to your will.

The moment you stop doing that, that wasted energy is available.

Therefore you are in that sense — having that energy available — you are one with the divine principle; you have the energy.

When you are trying, however, to act as if you were god, that is to say you don’t trust anybody and you are the dictator and you have to keep everybody in line you lose the divine energy because what you are simply doing is defending yourself.

One mistake that I’ve been guilty of is to try to force things to conform to my will on various projects (I still do it to varying degrees!). It is usually with the best of intentions — for a cleaner framework, a better product, a more efficient process — but at the same time, it is true that a lot of energy is spent wasted in doing so.

What is the alternative, then?

I think Watts is right that a level of trust has to exist that the team around you can help you achieve your project goals. Instead of expending the energy in controlling the members of the team, spend the energy in building that trust through training, mentorship, guidance, and giving up not just control, but responsibility.

Sometimes that trust will be unwarranted, but sometimes, that trust will pay itself back many-fold.